Reading Strategies in the High School Curriculum: Module 2

Module 2: Reading Strategies and Decoding Instructional Text

Once able to distinguish between informational text and narrative text, students still find it difficult to decode the text they are reading. Many students will be able to fluenty read even the most challenging of texts, but will not be able to recall, or even take valuable information from the text they are reading.

Please answer the following questions in the discussion area of this page. Please comment on the thoughts of others as well:

• Did you have trouble decoding text as a student? What problems did you have?
• Would you consider yourself a proficient reader now?
• What strategies do you use to extract valuable information in a text?
• Do you teach your students strategies to decode text? If so, what are they?

Module Objectives:

• Participants will be able to identify the six Active Reading Strategies.
  • Participants will be able to use active reading strategies to decode a text of their choice.
    • Participants will be able to make inferences as to how students will react to applying active reading strategies.

Acive Reading Strategies: An Introduction

Active reading strategies are a simplistic way to engage the students in reading. In addition, active reading strategies allow the student to, in a sense, have a conversation with the text they are reading. The key portion of active reading strategies is that students are constantly active and are never simply reading for comprehension, but rather, conversing for comprehension. Active Reading Strategies may even be enhanced by incorporating them with KWL charts. The following is a brief listing of the active reading strategies. They will be covered in greater depth as the unit progresses:

• Identification of text (informational or narrative)
  • Prior knowlege
    • Annotate and react
      • Work with troublesome vocabulary
        • Make Predictions
          • Final reactions/solutions

Identification of text:

As discussed in module one, in order to even begin to understand a text one must first distinguish what written form the text is in. Have students identify what type of text they are working with and ask them to tell why the text is labled as such.

Prior Knowledge:

This strategie requires students to apply what they already know to the text. During this step, students should preview the text and attempt to connect themselves to it. This may be done by recalling personal experiences, and knowledge. Have students share experiences they may have had that realate to the text. Sharing experiences always helps to enhance learning.

Annotate and React:

This strategie requires students to, in a sense, have a conversation with the text. As students are reading, instruct them to ask frequent questions and take notex in the margins of the text or on a separate peice of paper. Students should also be encouraged to underline important vocabulary and concepts and attempt to relate their prior knowledge to the text as they are reading.

Work with Troublesome Vocabulary:

This strategie calls for students to write down vocabulary that confuses them. Students then need to find clues in the text that may allude to what the word might mean. If the student cannot find a clue in the text, they may want to make a note on thier paper to remind themselves to look up the word. Once the definition is found, students are asked to read the text again and apply the definition.

Make Predictions:

Students are asked to make predictions as to what, they believe, the text is trying to convey to them. Those students working with informational text will make predictions on what they believe the final question or solution will be.

Final Reactions/Solutions:

This final step in the Active Reading Process requires students to develop a final reaction or a final solution to the text. Those students who are working with narrative text will write a brief final reaction to the text. They will ask themselves the following questions:

• What is the main idea of this text?
• What did I learn from this text?
• What surprised me about this text?

Those students who are working with informational text will want to base thier final reactions on forming a solution to the problem, or forming a set of notes based on the information given. Students should base their responses on the following questions:

• What information am I given?
• What am I asked to do with this information?
• What should my next step be for solving this problem, or working with the information I am given?''

Your Task:

Based on the information discussed, please choose a text from the academic discourse you teach and read it applying the active reading strategies that have been described in this module. Please post a written response for each of the six active reading strategies. Once completed please post a copy of your text and your response using the active reading strategies. Please comment on the readings and reactions of at least two other participants. When commenting, please choose one student who has read an informational text and one student who has read a narrative text. Once complested, you may move to module three.

Proceed to Module Three: Module_3

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